Less hassle – more games

It has been a strange year so far. I’ve done a lot of game development yet my list of games hasn’t really expanded. However what I’ve really enjoyed it exploring new platforms. With a handful of titles on Android and my first Xbox 360 game, there’s been plenty exciting and proud moments. After piling in the hours on Invertical, I then got it launched on two larger stores (Amazon & Desura).

However my reoccurring issue is discovery as well as “PR & marketing”. I know I don’t do enough myself, but it is still disheartening to spend ages sending emails and making that push when shattered after a game dev slog (whilst also having a stressful full time job!) only to get no replies. The lack of commercial success has led to me releasing most of my released games for free. Why get a handful of sales that amounts to sod all after tax, fees etc when I could potentially see a hundred or maybe even thousand times as many people play is for free?! I do this for fun after all, even if paying back the money I spend or going on a holiday would be nice…

This is why going forward all self-published games developed by just myself will be released for free (aside from Xbox ones where I have to charge!). Also rather than the whole planning to do a PR/marketing campaign, ending up spending just a few nights on it then ultimately getting no where… I’ll skip to the end and release.

I’ve had joy with Windows Phone for Trick or Treat (downloads are better than my Play Store figures for all games combined!) so that is something I’d like to continue. I’ve also really warmed to distributing via GameJolt and IndieDB where people are actively going there to find games – including the sort of games I make. The HTML5 support in GameJolt is nice and handy, plus I get a cut of the advertising revenue (I may be able to save up and buy a bag of pretzels!).

So yeah… in summary this is what you can expect from Oxygen Addict over the next year (excluding anything I do with other folk):